Latest KFF Health News Stories
Ariz. Hospitals Drop Medicaid Cuts Lawsuit; Fla. Gov. Signs Controversial Medicaid Bill
Both states have news happening in their Medicaid programs.
Viewpoints: Ryan’s Budget Called ‘Cruel’ Or ‘Sophisticated’
A selection of editorials and opinions on health care policy from around the country.
State Roundup: Texas, Minn. Scrutinize Psychiatric Care
A selection of health policy news from Georgia, Louisiana, Minnesota, Texas and Kansas.
Course Of State Implementation Efforts Unchanged By High Court’s Review
Politico reports that state plans appear unchanged by this week’s events. Those that were moving ahead at full speed will likely continue to do so. Those who were taking a go-slow approach have no need to change strategies now. But for Massachusetts, the justices’ questions regarding the individual mandate have triggered concerns that the challenges to the federal law could spur similar efforts at the state level.
Insurers, Employers React To Idea Of A Health Law Without An Individual Mandate
Insurers’ “worst nightmare” is that the Supreme Court would overturn the health law’s insurance requirement but leave the rest of the overhaul intact. Employers are being advised to continue working toward meeting the law’s deadlines.
Contemplating The Options: What Will Become Of The Health Law?
With the Supreme Court arguments complete, media outlets consider the various scenarios that could play out, and the complications that could arise. To quote the Tom Petty song: “The waiting is the hardest part.”
U.S. Suspends Resumed Food Aid To North Korea
“The United States has suspended planned food aid to North Korea as Pyongyang vows to push ahead with a plan to launch a long-range missile in defiance of international warnings, U.S. military officials said on Wednesday,” Reuters reports (Eckert, 3/29). “Under a deal reached last month, North Korea agreed to a partial nuclear freeze and a moratorium on missile testing in return for U.S. food aid,” but “Pyongyang then announced it would use a long-range rocket to launch a satellite,” VOA’s “Breaking News” blog writes (3/28). Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Lavoy on Wednesday “told lawmakers North Korea had violated [the] moratorium agreement and could not be trusted to deliver the aid properly,” BBC News writes (3/28). The aid package, containing 240,000 tons of food and nutritional products, “was expected to target the most needy in North Korea — including malnourished young children and pregnant women,” VOA News notes (Ide, 3/28).
Study Examines TB Services In Prisons In Countries Receiving Global Fund Grants
According to a study recently published in a special supplement of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, half of countries receiving grants from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria provide tuberculosis (TB) services in prisons; “even when TB services were provided to prisoners, they were limited in scope; and “[f]ew of the programs receiving a grant from the Global Fund offered services dedicated to the treatment and prevention of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB),” an aidsmap news story reports. TB is a leading cause of death among incarcerated individuals worldwide, aidsmap notes. The study authors concluded, “There is an urgent need to better understand the financing needs and cost-effective service delivery models for tuberculosis care in prisons,” according to the story (Carter, 3/30).
U.S. Releases Policy Requiring Dual-Use Biological Research Reviews Amid Bird Flu Debate
“The U.S. government [on Thursday] released a new policy [.pdf] that will require federal agencies to systematically review the potential risks associated with federally funded studies involving 15 ‘high consequence’ pathogens and toxins, including the H5N1 avian influenza virus,” Science Insider reports. “The reviews are designed to reduce the risks associated with ‘dual use research of concern’ (DURC) that could be used for good or evil,” the news service writes (Malakoff, 3/29).
Development Spending In Health Sector Can Lead To Improvements In Other Basic Services
Global health expert Jim Yong Kim, the U.S. nominee to the World Bank presidency, “is attracting criticism from those worried about the ‘healthization’ of the development field,” Amanda Glassman, director of global health policy and a research fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD), writes in this post in the center’s “Global Health Policy” blog. Glassman describes the differences between development aid aimed at improving health versus other basic services such as water, sanitation, roads, justice, education, electricity, and lays out several points supporting her position that spending in the health sector leads to improvements in other economic arenas. “‘[H]ealthization’ can’t fairly be characterized as just charity and expansive spending, a marginal field of endeavor not related to the core business,” she writes, adding, “Instead, better health and nutrition are major players in the development story, and the field has lots to offer the broader enterprise” (3/28).
Report Examines Political History Of International AIDS Conferences
In this post in the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ (CSIS) “Smart Global Health” blog, Katherine Bliss, deputy director and senior fellow at the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, discusses a report — titled, “The International AIDS Conference Returns to the United States” — that “examines the political history of the international AIDS conferences from 1985 to the present.” She writes, “The report finds that the most significant conferences from participants’ point of view have featured either major scientific breakthroughs, such as the 1996 Vancouver meeting, or substantial sociopolitical breakthroughs, as in Durban in 2000, when unprecedented civil society engagement helped generate momentum for the development of an international consensus to institute and scale up treatment for HIV-infected populations in resource-limited settings” (3/29).
Somaliland Officials Appeal For Food Aid, Water For Thousands Of Families Affected By Drought
“Officials in the self-declared republic of Somaliland, [in] northwestern Somalia, are appealing for food aid and potable water for thousands of families who have lost their livelihoods in the current drought,” IRIN reports. “In February, [the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP)] provided food assistance to nearly 150,000 people in Somaliland, according to Challiss McDonough, WFP’s senior spokesperson for East, Central and Southern Africa,” according to the news service. Food insecurity in some areas is classified at “crisis level,” with children, expectant and nursing mothers, and the elderly most affected, IRIN notes. “WFP is shifting its focus from emergency assistance towards targeted programs, including building reservoirs, wells and roads which support communities’ resilience to seasonal shocks, according to spokesperson McDonough, who said that in the past year WFP had doubled the number of nutrition programs in Somalia,” the news service writes (3/30).
‘Large-Scale Action’ Needed In Myanmar To Prevent Spread Of Artemisinin-Resistant Malaria Parasites
In this New York Times opinion piece, Frank Smithuis, director of Medical Action Myanmar in Yangon, and Nick White, professor of tropical medicine at the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok, recount a brief history of the development of anti-malaria drugs and their contribution to “a significant global reduction in malaria” and note that this progress “is now threatened by the emergence of malaria parasites that are resistant to artemisinin on the Cambodia-Thailand border …, the same place where chloroquine resistance emerged 50 years ago and spread across Asia and Africa to claim millions of lives.” They write, “The spread of artemisinin resistance is a very serious threat to health in the tropics. There are currently no drugs that can satisfactorily replace artemisinins.”
India’s Success Against Polio Is Promising Step In Defeating Disease Worldwide
“That India is free of wild polio today is a testament to the commitment of the Indian government,” which “invested more than $1 billion over the last decade and collaborated with community leaders, health workers, businesses, and parents,” as well as governments, non-governmental organizations, and multilateral agencies, to fight the disease, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius writes in a Foreign Affairs opinion piece. “The victory over the disease in India has saved millions of lives from disability and death. And although the world must remain vigilant against polio to prevent its resurgence, India’s success will gradually allow the nation to focus resources and experience on [other] diseases and initiatives,” she states.
Inter Press Service reports on a research study conducted in Argentina that “explored women’s knowledge and beliefs about cervical cancer, in the provinces with the highest mortality from this highly preventable form of cancer, to design more effective policies.” The news service writes, “Although there are now effective tools to prevent cervical cancer, and vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) is free and mandatory for 11-year-old girls, the death rate from cervical cancer is not declining in Argentina, and the geographical distribution of the burden is extremely unequal.”
USAID Issues Scientific Integrity Policy To Guide Scientific, Scholarly Activities
“Spurred by a 2009 directive from President Obama and subsequent guidance from the White House,” USAID on Wednesday “issued a new Scientific Integrity Policy [.pdf] to safeguard the quality and integrity of the Agency’s scientific and scholarly activities,” according to a USAID press release. The policy “articulates the principles regarding how scientific and scholarly activities are supported and carried out, and how research findings are used and disseminated,” the press release states, adding, “The intention of this policy is to capture and employ … best practices throughout the Agency and introduce new ways that USAID can enhance the use of science for development” (3/28).
Panel Discussion Focuses On Lessons Learned From Bush Administration Foreign Aid Programs
The Center for Global Health Policy’s “Science Speaks” blog reports on a panel discussion hosted on Wednesday by the Consensus for Development Reform and the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network in Washington, D.C. “Foreign assistance experts discuss[ed] the George W. Bush administration’s legacy on global development, focusing on lessons learned and applying them to the next decade and beyond,” and a central theme was the engagement of the private sector, the blog writes. Panelists highlighted the Millennium Challenge Corporation and PEPFAR, according to the blog (Mazzotta, 3/29).
Today’s early morning highlights from the major news organizations, including reports that the House yesterday approved the $3.5 trillion Ryan budget plan – which includes deep cuts in entitlements and will likely trigger the election-year fiscal debate.
The Supreme Court Arguments Are Over – What Happens Now?
News outlets sum up the oral arguments and preview when to expect a decision, what impact the legal review might have on politics and what other ripple effects could occur.
High Court And Severability: What Parts Of The Law Could Fall?
On Wednesday, the nine justices pondered what parts — if any — of the health law could go forward if the individual mandate is overturned. The discussion involved fundamental consitutional questions.
